Earlier this week, it was rumored that five actors were on the shortlist as front-runners to play Batman in Matt Reeves’ The Batman: Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Kick-Ass, Avengers: Age of Ultron), Alexander Ludwig (Vikings, The Hunger Games), Jack O’Connell (Godless), Jack Reynor (Transformers: Age of Extinction, Midsommar) and Nicholas Hoult (X-Men: Dark Phoenix).
As quickly as that list grew traction, it lost all its steam, as new reports indicates that it’s fake.
One source says that “There are no front-runners because that list hasn’t been formed yet” and that Reeves wants to get his script perfectly polished before considering a Batman actor.
The other source says “The list seems to be a compilation of five of the most obvious candidates that anyone with access to Google and a reasonable knowledge of up and coming actors could come up with.” Yikes.
I can see this going one of two ways. Either the list is, in fact, real and this is them trying to get everyone off the scent as quickly as possible. The only way this proves true is if one of those actors, indeed, ends up getting the role. Or, as the second source said, someone made this list up and it sounded good but there’s no merit to it.
As an avid NBA fan, whenever there are trade rumors, they seem to be the most obvious trades. The ones that actually do happen, however, are the ones you never hear about. I feel like Hollywood acts the same way. Lists of the most obvious choices to play a role come out, but the actual cast ends up being quite different. Look no further than Heath Ledger as The Joker, Tom Hardy as Bane or Ben Affleck as Batman.
We still don’t know much about Matt Reeves’ Batman film. The most concrete information we seem to have is that it will feature at least 4 Batman villains, though even that hasn’t been confirmed.
The Batman isn’t scheduled to hit theaters until June 25, 2021, so there’s no rush to get information. Let’s all sit back and enjoy the ride. This will be the first solo Batman film since 2012’s The Dark Knight Rises, so let’s not rush through the process.